In the last a couple weeks, there has been non-stop criticism over US President Obama's China visit, not just by the US media, but also by the European media. These news media repeatedly used words such as "weak", "empty handed", "gave up principles", "incompetent", etc. This language reflects the average people's disappointment in President Obama. The US parties on both the left and right are even more disappointed. The leaders of the Democratic Party are still trying to hold their voices. But among the opposition party, some Republican Congressmen could not hold their anger anymore. They held an emergency press conference this week and invited me and some senior scholars and activists together to criticize and discuss as why Obama's China visit disappointed the public so much in an effort to prevent human rights condition in China worsen.

On the other side, reading the news from the China, one could tell that the Chinese Communists have really had their heads turned by their success. They had never run into an obeying adversary like this one. Even the detailed itinerary of the US president had to be presented and approved by the Communist regime. When the treatment of a US president could be reduced to a "little brother" from Africa had never happened before in history. Thus the conceited psychology of the Chinese Communist Party inflated again, to the degree that some of them made a presumptuous evaluation that there would be no more diplomatic issues in the next 3 years. The pressure from the US human rights diplomacy could be ignored in the future.

In reality, the following is also what had happened. Some Chinese human rights activists who were put on trial but did not receive verdicts were immediately sentenced as soon as Obama left China. International human rights organizations all feel that these detained human rights activists were originally designated to be hostage gifts to be given to the visiting US president. However, Obama's attitude was too weak to accept these gifts, thus the sentences of these human rights hostages were issued with the further deterioration of the human rights situation in China. These predictions are not without their reasons. What the Chinese Communist regime did exactly proves that the deterioration has started.

But I have also noticed some incoherent phenomena. To an observer from inside of the USA, even before Obama's China visit the trade clash between the USA and China intensified. The political relationship between the two countries is also in a period of cooling off. Internationally, the trade clashes between Europe and China started earlier and with larger magnitude. Politically, Europe treated China with even less enthusiasm. As the near neighbor to China, Japan seems even more antsy. The new Yukio Hatoyama administration has adopted a more radical periphery diplomacy. Instead of relying on America, it is taking initiative diplomatically by relying on itself. Some media attribute this to the decline of the USA.

But I do not think so. From viewing both internationally and within the USA, the troop to besiege the Chinese Communist Party and force it to make compromises both on human rights and trade has already built up. The rest is to determine the combat scheme. Should it follow the strategy of the G. W. Bush administration and assume the US can take care of everything? Or should it mobilize the initiative conscience of these allies to fight together? I think that Obama took a different strategy than did Bush. From the result, it seems to be so as well.

In the past, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries had all pushed off the responsibility from Chinese Communist Party's threat to the USA. These countries have been relying on the protection from the USA on one side, while pleasing the Chinese Communist regime for economic interest on the other. That strategy makes the USA the villain to Communist China, while these countries were pleasing both sides for profit. This kind of setup not only forced the USA to carry too much weight, but also means that the alliance could fall apart any time. The realities in the past several decades indeed prove that the members of this alliance all had their own selfish calculations: the idea of "consolidate at every step" became "retreat step by step". The USA's functionality in Asia has been rapidly declining, while the Chinese Communist regime has been happily "rising".

In the Art of War by Sunwu there is a saying: Capable yet show as incapable. That also means to take a retreat as a way to advance. Showing its weakness, or using a weak diplomacy by the Obama team this year, has forced Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, etc. to be nervous, and thus reaffirm their own positions and responsibilities. Only when all the members of the alliance take the responsibility and move forward can this alliance have a real capacity of action, instead of undercutting each other. As the saying goes, shared threat produces shared interest. Regardless of the subjective strategy of President Obama, the objective circumstance is that the Western alliance is rebuilding.

The era that the USA can take care of everything has passed. But the Western alliance under the US leadership shall be strengthened during this rebuilding process. This is more effective than simply crying out against the "China threat".

Wei Jingsheng